I usually start the game zoomed in enough to see my pretty ships, pretty planets, et cetera, but after a year or two of in-game time I'm too spread apart, so I find myself zooming out for the majority of the game.

Plus, my laptop (I'm living out of my home country and using a couple-year-old lappy) seems to run it better when I'm zooooooooomed out.

I am forced to play in icon mode thanks to my incredibly bad (laptop) graphics card.

At first I resented this, but now since I am used to it I will probably continue to play like this even if i buy a new machine.

Although at times when more dramtic events happen I like to zoom in and enjoy the beautifull art, even thought it's likely below 1fps     

I have no choice but to go against the tide here!

Iconed maps are simply boring to me and remind of a rather simplistic chess-board. X pieces move to point Y while Z can diagonally intercept.

I *NEVER* play at zoom out to icons, i might be tempted to catch a glimpse of the entire context once in awhile - but whadda'ya think the mini-map is for? Granted, it has less symbolic gizmos to stare at... but +/- is good enough.

Now, comes in the tactical gamer -- i want THAT challenge of the unknown and guessing work - i feel space is huge and distances do matter even when scrolling a mouse-wheel just a tiny bit further. I may be just locked up in a sufficating brownish fog trying to evaluate and distinguish between a Constructor flat white glyph and the other one right beside it when in fact, they are truly LYs away from one another - in box, grid, sector or parsecs.

Now, comes the artist and the emotions -- i want the clouds to remind me of that precious Homeworld instead of a Logo (i'm seeing it many times over in a number of screens anyway, the same bigger or smaller)... and the immediate emergency of a slow scout stuck on a path to dangers ahead since it is lurking in the shadows of a nebula underneath or glowing. Cyanic wire ovals & all. Rings diversity and Moons swooping the gravity runs.

Yup, i *NEVER* play all the way down to Icons cuz i paid for something which can go all the way up to please me.
I also design some of my own weird ships for an half-hour perfection if i want to, thank you and they look great in a yard or in a galaxy perceivable in all its colourful opera of stars to Polar caps.

King to pawn D-Five. Surveyor to Anomaly blueish Worm-Hole overthere in the distant mystery loosely based on a reality. Pick your poison.

Sarcasm or fact?
Nope, a Quebec_french "Minor" who's typing messages with a limited vocabulary and the mindset to parse through whichever comes first. Words, that is - translated as close as possible.

I always play in icon mode, having set the slider so low so the 3d graphics never show. To reinforce what others have said, the models are very pretty, but the icons are more informative! From a strict strategy perspective, I like the icons better... reminds me of a board game!

C'mon Mumble, you know the answer to your own question, you just don't like it. We *share* this game with a *very* broad range of player types. Surely you remember the not insignificant share of folks who feel pretty much this way about the Metaverse, yes?

I had some performance problems with my old sub-spec rig, but overall the Stardock folks do an amazing job of building their eye candy in an opt-out structure. If the dev time spend on rotating ship parts helps bring in additional revenue that supports Stardock's game division overall, I don't consider it worthless even if I never use one myself (I haven't yet; I won't be playing much in the ship designer until the new tech trees are old, familiar friends).

p.s. Since you've offered yet another fine, curmudgeonly post, I once again call on you to face facts, say your goodbyes to the Diplomats, and come home to the Gerontocracy. We'd want you even if you weren't the fearsome scoremonster that you are

Ah, thanks for that clarification, Zyxpsilon! I've sometimes had trouble getting your meaning in some of your posts, but being able to place you as a native french speaker actually really helps me understand what you're getting at.

We have a fair number of NB acadian-french speakers and quebecois here in Halifax, and I find that native french speakers often have a particular way of coming at the english language that I've gotten used to.

On my gaming rig, I zoom in and out at will...but mostly play zoomed in.

On my laptop, the game is just too resource intensive, so I have to play zoomed out if I want to have any kind of speed to my game play.

I certainly do. I actually find the icon view very visually appealing (which is not to knock the gorgeous zoomed in art, of course) and incredibly informative. Other games would do well to learn from GC2 in this regard. I'm looking at you, Civ and Sins.

I constantly zoom in and out, depending on whether I want to look at something or find something. Generally speaking, I zoom in just enough to see ship outlines and planet names. I'll zoom out to find a starbase or to check on influence borders, or to see how close enemy ships are to my empire. I rarely zoom in close enough so that one ship or fleet fills the screen, unless I want to looke at the details of a starbase or something like that. I do love watching the ship combat, though.

Danger_Gizmo_Hajdu, i appreciate the understandings - not that i should be less careful about how i express myself in some specific areas (grammar or syntax, being just two) like vocabulary extent.

The trick with Canada as a whole is that the diversity of two official languages makes it difficult to find common grounds at times (won't get into Politics (Referendum_S on Sovereighty anyone?), mind you!) not counting the HUGE immigration communities out there; living in urban regions such as Montreal proves it when you realize there's much more to this country than the French_English core 'ancestral' founders and their descendants like just simple me.

Heck, here in laval i see & hear more Greeks in public places than if i were on some remote islands in the Mediterranean sea! So that tells you.

Back to topic.

I really can grasp the entire 'Strategic' value of Zoomed-to-Icons or the easiest perception of on-going activities while not forgetting that in this world of GDI enhancements because or since (we, customers and buyers of Hardware) the market has the power to develop any real-time fair reproductions of imagery. It's not like we're still playing PacMan in arcades for a quarter, ya know.

Thus, the challenge of Zoomed-in-to-1280x1024-screensize-framing of a single starting system (which is on my PC only about 8x8 parsecs big!) is somehow, more 'involving'.

Just take the Combat simulator -- i never bothered using it more than once, it's a show. But some people PLAY to it, and enjoy the gimmicks.

But, when a battle between Yor & Drengin fleets happens to start 8 sectors away from where my selected ship is... i have the option ON to get to it and watch a party of lasers firing and the final explosion to determine the winner! Swift, action packed which i wouldn't know about if Iconed permanently.

Where's the gaming fun, otherwise? Or even, the key strategic knowledge of such occurances when it does or should matter *indirectly*.

In fact, i'll just bet that if the Dominion of Korx as a race would be portrayed by a grey circle of blobby abstracts only, nobody would really like GC2. Then, extend this reasoning to the entire context.

DreadLords' organic red ships zooming right by my clunky 2 pistons scout! I mean, com'on... anyone has got to like that better than -- Heu, what does this shape represent exactly?.

I'm getting there, Gizmo... as i believe this whole community really deserves *my*_our best efforts (in my case, though, it's alllllmmmmost exclusively about Modding - too!)

Communicating is a skill which relies mostly on personal experience, while knowledge is a 'brainy asset' we gain through life itself.